The Right Circumstances
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: Sometimes all you need is to meet under them...
The Brat and his dæmon Dìonadair had the rather unfortunate fate of always being that _one kid_ everyone else picked on. His family wasn't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, all his clothes were hand-me-downs from older brothers and cousins, both his parents worked to pay the bills, and since their house was out in the middle of nowhere, he had to ride his bike to school. Apparently, taken altogether, it made him ripe pickings for the older tosspots that liked roughing up anyone smaller than them. It'd given him a rather bitter attitude that earned him the moniker of the Brat, even at home. His siblings didn't even call him by his real name anymore.

"When you settle, it better be as something big," the Brat muttered to Dìonadair as four older boys approached him, all of them with settled dæmons – a bulldog, some kind of hawk, a warthog, and a wildcat. They'd cornered him in the narrow alley behind the school, and the biggest one had chucked his bike in the dumpster. It'd _suck_ having to get that out afterwards.

"No kidding," Dìonadair replied as she jumped off his shoulder and became a leopard. She snarled out a warning at the other boys' dæmons, but her tail flicked nervously. Dìonadair didn't like fighting. They got enough of that at home, especially when Da hit the bottle too hard and Coria started snapping at any dæmon that moved, including his children's.

It didn't last very long. There were four of the prats, and they were all _bigger_ than him. His father once told him never to get insult anyone bigger than him, but if that was the case, then he'd never get to insult _anybody._ The Brat was a small kid for his age, and at least once a week teachers asked him if he was in the right class because they thought he was in a younger year.

But then the prats decided to step up their game.

The Brat was spitting out blood, two of the bigger boys holding his arms to keep him still, when there was a sharp twist of pain in his chest and Dìonadair let out a yowl. The two boys, the ones with the bulldog and wildcat dæmons, had backed up several paces, and their dæmons were holding Dìonadair in their jaws, dragging her back with them, _pulling_ on their link. Oh, this was worse than any beating they gave him, because that was only physical pain. This was hurting his heart, twisting painfully in his chest. "Let her go! No! Please, don't!" he cried, trying to thrash free as Dìonadair flitted from shape to shape trying to get loose. "Stop, please, it _hurts!"_

"The _hell_ do you think you're doing?" snapped a smooth voice from the end of the alley.

Blinking away the tears on his lashes, the Brat saw another boy, some four years older than him, come striding forward. He was wearing expensive-looking clothes, practically reeking of money, and the Brat knew this had to be the new kid, the rich family that'd come from London on summer holiday. "Piss off, poufter, this has nothing to do with you," snapped the boy with the warthog dæmon, still twisting the Brat's arm behind his back at an agonizing angle.

"Let him go right now, and his dæmon," the rich boy demanded.

"Or what? You gonna go call daddy to save you?" taunted the boy with the bulldog dæmon that still had a whimpering Dìonadair in her jaws.

A dry, hissing rattle cut through the air, immediately silencing all of them. The Brat recognised the sound, not because he'd seen one before but because he'd watched enough BBC Earth to know it. Curled in a striking 'S' shape on the alley ground, a rattlesnake dæmon coiled to strike just beside the hind leg of the bulldog, her black tongue flickering in and out; the rattle at the end of her tail shimmied again, the deadly sound filling the air. "I said, let them go," the rich boy repeated coldly.

The bulldog and wildcat dæmons released Dìonadair, and she bounded across the alley to the Brat. The other two boys had released his arms, and he fell to his knees to catch Dìonadair in his arms, hugging her favourite form, that of a badger, to his chest. Nothing had ever hurt so much as having her pulled away from him like that. He buried his nose in her fur, only dimly aware that the four prats had done a bunk and ran for it. "Are you alright?" the rich boy asked as he came to stand beside the Brat; the deadly beautiful rattlesnake had coiled loosely around his neck like a scaled necklace, her intelligent eyes watching Dìonadair closely.

"Aye, I'm fine," the Brat replied roughly, swiping away the incriminating evidence of tears before rising to his feet. Dìonadair stayed in her badger form, leaning up against his leg. "Thanks for that, mate." He used the edge of his sleeve to wipe the blood off his chin and nose, spitting out more of the thick coppery stuff.

"No problem. I hate people like that," answered the rich boy, then held out one hand; on his wrist was a watch that probably cost more than the Brat's family car. "My family just moved in up Crasterly Way. My name is Philip Burton, and this is Adrasteia," he said. The rattlesnake flickered her tongue in mute greeting.

The Brat shook his hand. "That's Dìonadair. I'm Nick Cutter."


End file.
